Monday, March 4, 2013

We have beetles... progress!!

Our chickens love, Love, LOVE eating meal worms, but I didn't love the price. I mean one of our hens could down 100 of them in a minute. Something had to give, so on January 8th, I bough some meal worms so I could start growing my own. I had no idea if this project would work or not, but I decided to give it the old college try by making a meal worm farm.

So far so good, because by January 30th we already had meal worms pupating. All my research said depending on conditions, the pupa would hatch anywhere from two weeks to nine months. So it would appear, thanks to the warm condition in our home, out little meal worms were on the fast track!

By February 3rd we had a couple of beetles hatch out. So from the time I bought my worms of unknown age till my first beetle was less then a month. How totally awesome is that!

It is now the beginning of March and most of our pupa have hatched. This may be gross to some, but I am so excited!!! It is like a frat party in their container. I mean those beetles are getting BUSY. Eggs can take anywhere from 4 to 19 days to hatch. But the baby meal worms are going to be soooooo tiny, I have no idea when I will know if we were successful. But trust me, if the beetle activity is ANY indication.... there are eggs! LOL

So for now I wait.... and listen to the little clicking sounds coming from the "farm." That's right my little beetles, do your thing. I wonder if I should put on some romantic music and light a candle?

Keep your fingers crossed and your eyes open for the next update on out meal worm farming project. To learn more about the life cycle of the Darkling beetle, click here.

2 comments:

Use several containers with food. put the adults in a new food container and every few weeks move them to a new container with new food. The eggs they lay in that food during that time will become the next larva bin for the cycle to continue. try to keep them separated since larva and adults will eat their fellow worms or so I read.

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On a 1/4 acre in a small town lives a slightly deranged woman who never thought she would be a Farm Girl again, then her son asked for a chicken! Welcome to my (mis)Adventures! My name is Mindie and I am so glad you are here!